The school district police chief blamed for officers not storming the fourth grade classroom where 19 children were killed last week in Texas will not be sworn into the council as scheduled.
Pedro “Pete” Arredondo was elected to Uvalde City Council with nearly 70 per cent of the vote on 7 May and was due to be sworn in on Tuesday after campaigning on community outreach, as the Uvalde Leader-News reported earlier this month.
In an announcement on Monday, however, Uvalde mayor Don McLaughlin said Mr Arredondo would not be sworn in at a special council meeting on Tuesday, as CNN first reported.
The mayor said the meeting will be postponed because funerals for the 19 children and two adult victims were taking place in the 15,000-person town.
“Our focus on Tuesday is on our families who lost loved ones,” said Mr McLaughlin.
“We begin burying our children tomorrow, the innocent victims of last week’s murders at Robb Elementary School,” the myaor continued. “The special City Council meeting will not take place as scheduled.”
While Mr Arredondo is expected to be sworn in at a rescheduled special council meeting, the Uvalde police chief has come under fire for his force’s response to the 24 May attack on Robb Elementary.
As head of police for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District where Robb Elementary is situated, Mr Arredondo called on his officers not to storm the classroom where 21 people were killed – reportedly believing shooter Salvador Ramos had barricaded himself inside.
Although the police chief was not identified by name by the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety on Friday, Col Steven McCraw acknowledged during a press conference that the Uvalde police chief’s decision was “not the right” one.
“From the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course it was not the right decision,” Col McCraw said of the decision. “It was the wrong decision. Period. There’s no excuse for that.”
Details about the police response continue to emerge a week after the attack, including how children and teachers phoned 911 about the gunman in their classroom.
The US justice department has meanwhile launched an investigation into what happened with the police response.
Uvalde’s mayor added on Monday that “Pete Arredondo was duly elected to the City Council” along with several others and as CNN reported, said: “There is nothing in the City Charter, Election Code, or Texas Constitution that prohibits him from taking the oath of office.”
The statement added: “To our knowledge, we are currently not aware of any investigation of Mr Arredondo.”
